[Cover photo: Portrait in oil of H. P.
Blavatsky by Hermann Schmiechen. This is the second portrait painted
by the artist in 1885. It is now in the Hall of the Indian Section, T.S.,
at Benares.]

*

THEOSOPHIA
A Living Philosophy for Humanity

Published every Three Months. Sponsored
by an International Group of Theosophists.
Objectives: To uphold and promote the Original Principles of the modern
Theosophical Movement, and to disseminate the teachings of the Esoteric
Philosophy as set
forth by H.P. Blavatsky and her Teachers.
Editor: Boris de Zirkoff.
Subscriptions: $2.00 a year (four issues); single copy 50 cents. Send all
subscriptions, renewals and correspondence to: 615 South Oxford Avenue, Los
Angeles 5, California.
Make checks and money orders payable to "Theosophia."

None of the organized Theosophical Societies, as such, are responsible
for any ideas expressed in this magazine, unless contained in an official
document. The Editor is responsible for unsigned articles only.

*

EDITORIAL NOTICE

May 8, 1966, marks the seventy-fifth anniversary
of H.P.B.’s
passing. In commemoration of this, our present issue is devoted to her
and to the work she came to do. Much has been accomplished since her
day, yet much remains to be done. Let us rally under her banner, and,
in united effort, forge ahead into new and unconquered fields of spiritual
endeavor! - Ed. Theosophia.

*

THOUGHTS
TO REMEMBER …

“... The present volumes have been written to
small purpose if they have not shown, 1, that Jesus, the Christ-God,
is a myth concocted two centuries after the real Hebrew Jesus died; 2,
that, therefore, he never had any authority to give Peter, or anyone
else, plenary power and that besides, the apostolic succession is a gross
and palpable fraud … The
whole thing, therefore, is an imposition alike upon priest and penitent.
But putting all these points aside for the moment, it suffices to ask
these pretended agents of the three gods of the Trinity, how they reconcile
it with the most rudimental notions of equity, that if the power to pardon
sinners for sinning has been given them, they did not also receive
the ability by miracle to obliterate the wrongs done against person or
property.
Let them restore life to the murdered ;·honor to the dishonored;
property to those who have been wronged, and force the scales of human
and divine justice to recover their equilibrium. Then we may talk of
their divine commission to bind and loose. Let them say, if they can
do this ... But all is silent; no answer, no reply, and still the inexorable
unerring Law of Compensation proceeds on its unswerving path ... it ignores
all creeds, shows no preferences, but its sunlight and its thunderbolts
fall alike on heathen and Christian. No absolution can shield the latter
when guilty, no anathema hurt the former when innocent.” - Isis Unveiled ,
Vol. II, pp. 544-4. [3]

*

“YOURS TILL DEATH AND AFTER,
H.P.B.” William Quan Judge, F.T.S.

[Originally published in Lucifer, Vol. VIII, June, 1891.]

Such has been the manner in which our beloved teacher and friend always
concluded her letters to me. And now, though we are all of us committing
to paper some account of that departed friend and teacher, I feel ever
near and ever potent the magic of that resistless power, as of a mighty
rushing river, which those who wholly trusted her always came to understand.
Fortunate indeed is that Karma which, for all the years since I first
met her, in 1875, has kept me faithful to the friend who, masquerading
under the outer mortal garment known as H. P. Blavatsky, was ever faithful
to me, ever kind, ever the teacher and the guide.

In 1874, in the City of New York, I first met H. P.
B. in this life. By her request, sent through Colonel H. S. Olcott, the
call was made in her rooms in Irving Place, when then, as afterwards,
through the remainder of her stormy career, she was surrounded by the
anxious, the intellectual, the bohemian, the rich and the poor. It was
her eye that attracted me, the eye of one whom I must have known in lives
long passed away. She looked at me in recognition at that first hour,
and never since has that look changed. Not as a questioner of philosophies
did I come before her, not as one groping in the dark for lights that
schools and fanciful theories had obscured, but as one who, wandering
many periods through the corridors of life, was seeking the friends who
could show where the designs for the work had been hidden. And true to
the call she responded, revealing the plans once again, and speaking
no words to explain, simply pointed them out and went on with the task.
It was as if but the evening before we had parted, leaving yet to be
done some detail of a task taken up with one common end; it was teacher
and pupil, elder brother and younger, both bent on the one single end,
but she with the power and the knowledge that belong but to lions and
sages. So, friends from the first, I felt safe. Others I know have looked
with suspicion on an appearance they could not fathom, and though it
is true they adduce many proofs which, hugged to the breast, would damn
sages and gods, yet it is only through blindness they failed to see the
lion’s glance,
the diamond heart of H. P. B.

The entire space of this whole magazine would not suffice to enable
me to record the phenomena she performed for me through all these years,
nor would I wish to put them down. As she so often said, they prove nothing
but only lead some souls to doubt and others to despair. And again, I
do not think they were done just for me, but only that in those early
days she was laying down the lines of force all over the land and I,
so fortunate, was at the centre of the energy and saw the play of forces
in visible phenomena. The explanation has been offered by some too anxious
friends that the earlier phenomena were mistakes in judgment, attempted
to be rectified in later years [4] by confining their area and
limiting their number, but until some one shall produce in the writing
of H. P. B. her concurrence with that view, I shall hold to her own explanation
made in advance and never changed. That I have given above. For many
it is easier to take refuge behind a charge of bad judgment than to understand
the strange and powerful laws which control in matters such as these.

Amid all the turmoil of her life, above the din produced by those who
charged her with deceit and fraud and others who defended, while month
after month, and year after year, witnessed men and women entering the
theosophical movement only to leave it soon with malignant phrases for
H. P. B., there stands a fact we all might imitate - devotion absolute
to her Master. “It was He,” she writes, “who told me
to devote myself to this, and I will never disobey, and never turn back.”

In 1888 she wrote to me privately: -

“Well, my only friend, you ought to know better.
Look into my life and try to realize it - in its outer course at least,
as the rest is hidden. I am under the curse of ever writing, as the wandering
Jew was under that of being ever on the move, never stopping one moment
to rest. Three ordinary healthy persons could hardly do what I have to
do. I live an artificial life; I am an automaton running full steam until
the power of generating steam stops, and then - good-bye … Night
before last I was shown a bird’s eye view of the Theosophical Societies.
I saw a few earnest reliable Theosophists in a death struggle with the
world in general, with other - nominal but ambitious - Theosophists.
The former are greater in numbers than you may think, and they prevailed,
as you in America will prevail, if you only remain staunch
to the Master’s programme and true to yourselves. And last night
I saw ... and now I feel strong - such as I am in my body - and ready
to fight for Theosophy and the few true ones to my last breath.
The defending forces have to be judiciously - so scanty they are - distributed
over the globe, wherever Theosophy is struggling against the powers of
darkness.”

Such she ever was; devoted to Theosophy and the Society organized to
carry out a programme embracing the world in its scope. Willing in the
service of the cause to offer up hope, money, reputation, life itself,
provided the Society might be saved from every hurt, whether small or
great. And thus bound body, heart and soul to this entity called the
Theosophical Society, bound to protect it at all hazards, in face of
every loss, she often incurred the resentment of many who became her
friends but would not always care for the infant organization as she
had sworn to do. And when they acted as if opposed to the Society, her
instant opposition seemed to them to nullify professions of friendship.
Thus she had but few friends, for it required a keen insight, untinged
with personal feeling, to see even a small part of the real H. P. Blavatsky.

But was her object merely to form a Society whose strength should lie
in numbers? Not so. She worked under directors who, operating from behind
the scene, knew that the Theosophical Society was, and was to be,
the nucleus from which help might spread to all the people of the day,
without thanks and without acknowledgment. Once, in London, I asked her
what was the chance [5] of drawing the people into the Society
in view of the enormous disproportion between the number of members and
the millions of Europe and America who neither knew of nor cared for
it. Leaning back in her chair, in which she was sitting before her writing
desk, she said: -

“When you consider and remember those days in 1875 and after,
in which you could not find any people interested in your thoughts, and
now look at the wide-spreading influence of theosophical ideas - however
labeled - it is not so bad. We are not working merely that people may
call themselves Theosophists, but that the doctrines we cherish
may affect and leaven the whole mind of this century. This alone can
be accomplished by a small earnest band of workers, who work for no human
reward, no earthly recognition, but who, supported and sustained by a
belief in that Universal Brotherhood of which our Masters are a part,
work steadily, faithfully, in understanding and putting forth for consideration
the doctrines of life and duty that have come down to us from immemorial
time. Falter not so long as a few devoted ones will work to keep the
nucleus existing. You were not directed to found and realise a Universal
Brotherhood, but to form the nucleus for one; for it is only when the
nucleus is formed that the accumulations can begin that will end in future
years, however far, in the formation of that body which we have in view.”

H. P. B. had a lion heart, and on the work traced out for her she had
the lion’s grasp; let us, her friends, companions and disciples,
sustain ourselves in carrying out the designs laid down on the trestle-board,
by the memory of her devotion and the consciousness that behind her task
there stood, and still remain, those Elder Brothers who, above the clatter
and the din of our battle, ever see the end and direct the forces distributed
in array for the salvation of “that great orphan - Humanity.”

*

“Deeply sensible of the Titanic struggle that is now in progress
between materialism and the spiritual aspirations of mankind, our constant
endeavor has been to gather into our several chapters, like weapons into
armories, every fact and argument that can be used to aid the latter
in defeating the former. Sickly and deformed child as it now is, the
materialism of Today is born of the brutal Yesterday. Unless its growth
is arrested, it may become our master. It is the bastard progeny of the
French Revolution and its reaction against ages of religious bigotry
and repression. To prevent the crushing of these spiritual aspirations,
the blighting of these hopes, and the deadening of that intuition which
teaches us of a God and a hereafter, we must show our false theologies
in their naked deformity, and distinguish between divine religion and
human dogmas. Our voice is raised for spiritual freedom, and our plea
made for enfranchisement from all tyranny, whether of SCIENCE or THEOLOGY.” - Isis Unveiled ,
Vol. I, p. xlv.[6]

*

THE NEW CYCLEH. P. Blavatsky

[We publish below a faithful English
translation of certain passages from H.P.B.’s powerful article
originally written in French and printed in the first issue of La Revue Theosophique of Paris,
March 21, 1889. Today, three-quarters of a century later, we witness
all around us the signposts and developments of precisely that which
she had in mind when writing this important pronouncement. We call for
close attention to her words on the part of all readers. - Editor, Theosophia.]

The principal aim of our organization, which we are laboring to make
a real brotherhood, is fully expressed in the motto of The Theosophical
Society and all of its official organs: “There is no religion higher
than Truth.” As an impersonal Society, we must seize the truth
wherever we find it, without permitting ourselves more partiality for
one belief than for another. This leads directly to a very logical conclusion:
if we acclaim and receive with open arms all sincere truth-seekers, there
can be no place in our ranks for the vehement sectarian, the bigot or
the hypocrite, enclosed in Chinese Walls of dogma, each stone beating
the words: “No admission!” What place indeed could such fanatics
occupy amongst us, fanatics whose religion forbids all inquiry and does
not admit any argument possible, when the mother-idea, the very root
whence springs the beautiful plant we call Theosophy is known to be -
absolute and unfettered liberty to investigate all the mysteries of Nature,
human or divine.

With this exception, the Society invites everyone to participate in
its activities and discoveries. Whoever feels his heart beat in unison
with the great heart of humanity; whoever feels his interests are one
with those of every being poorer and less fortunate than himself; every
man or woman who is ready to hold out a helping hand to those who suffer;
whoever understands the true meaning of the word “Egoism,” is
a Theosophist by birth and right. He can always be sure of finding sympathetic
souls in our midst. Our Society is actually a sort of miniature humanity
where, as in the human species at large, one can always find one’s
counterpart.

If we are told that in our Society the atheist elbows the deist, and
the materialist elbows the idealist, we would reply: What does it matter?
Be an individual a materialist, i.e., one who would find in matter
an infinite potency for creation or rather for the evolution of all terrestrial
life; or be he a Spiritualist, endowed with a spiritual perception which
the former does not have - in what way does this prevent the one or the
other from being a good Theosophist? Moreover, the worshippers of a personal
god or a divine Substance are much more materialistic than the Pantheists
who reject the idea of a carnalized god, but who perceive the divine
essence in every atom. Everyone knows that Buddhism does not recognize
either one god or many gods. Yet the Arhat, for whom every atom of dust
is as much replete with Svabhavat (plastic substance, eternal and intelligent,
though impersonal) as he is [7] himself, and who strives to assimilate
that Svabhavat by identifying himself with the All, in order to attain
Nirvana, must travel the same painful road of renunciation, of good works
and of altruism, and must lead the same saintly life, though less egotistical
in its motive, as the beatified Christian. What matters the passing form,
if the goal to be attained is the same eternal essence, whether that
essence manifests itself to human perception as substance, as an immaterial
breath, or as nothing! Let us admit the PRESENCE, whether called
personal God or universal substance, and recognize a cause if we all
see its effects. But these effects being the same for the atheist-Buddhist
and for the deist-Christian, and the cause being invisible and inscrutable
for the one as for the other, why waste our time in running after a shadow
that cannot be grasped? When all is said, the greatest of materialists,
as well as the most transcendental of philosophers, admit the omnipresence
of an impalpable Proteus, omnipotent in its ubiquity throughout all the
kingdoms of nature, including man; Proteus indivisible in its essence,
and eluding form, yet appearing under all and every form; who is here
and there and everywhere and nowhere; is All and Nothing; ubiquitous
yet One; universal Essence binding, bounding, containing everything,
contained in all. Where is the theologian who could go any farther? It
is sufficient to recognize these truths, to be a Theosophist, for this
recognition is tantamount to admitting that not only humanity - composed
as it is of thousands of races - but everything that lives and vegetates,
in short, everything that is, is made of the same essence and substance,
is animated by the same spirit, and that, consequently, everything in
nature, whether physical or moral, is bound in solidarity.

We have already said elsewhere, in The Theosophist, that “born
in the United States of America the Theosophical Society was constituted
on the model of its Mother Land .” The latter, as we know, has
omitted the name of God from its Constitution, for fear, said the Fathers
of the Republic, that the word might one day become the pretext for a
State religion; for they desired to grant absolute equality to all religions
under the law, so that each form would support the State, which in its
turn would protect them all.

The Theosophical Society was founded on that excellent model ... Thus,
every Branch, like every member, being free to profess whatever religion
and to study whatever philosophy or science it prefers, provided all
remain united in the tie of Solidarity or Brotherhood, our Society can
truly call itself a “Republic of Conscience.”

Though free to pursue whatever intellectual occupation pleases him
the best, each member of our Society must, however, furnish some reason
for belonging thereto, which amounts to saying that each member must
contribute his part, small though it be, in mental or other labor for
the benefit of all. If one does not work for others one has no right
to be called a Theosophist. All must strive for freedom of human thought,
for the elimination of selfish and sectarian superstitions, and for the
discovery of all the truths that are within the reach of the human mind.
That object cannot be attained more certainly than by the cultivation
of unity in intellectual labors. No honest [8] worker, no earnest
seeker can remain empty handed, and there is hardly a man or woman, busy
as they may think themselves to be, incapable of laying their tribute,
moral or pecuniary, on the altar of truth. The duty of Branch and Section
Presidents will be henceforth to see to it that the Theosophical beehive
is kept free from those drones which keep merely buzzing ...

We are face to face with all the glorious possibilities of the future.
This is again the hour of the great cyclic return of the rising tide
of mystical thought in Europe . On every side we are surrounded by the
ocean of universal science - the science of life eternal - bearing on
its waves the forgotten and submerged treasures of vanished generations,
treasures still unknown to the modern civilized races. The strong current
which rises from the watery depths, from the depths where lie the prehistoric
learning and arts swallowed up with the antediluvian Giants - demigods,
though but mere outlines of mortal men - that current strikes us in the
face and murmurs: “That which has been still exists; that which
has been forgotten, buried for aeons in the depths of the Jurassic strata,
may reappear to view once more. Prepare yourselves.”

Happy are those who can interpret the language of the elements. But
where are they bound for whom the word element has no other meaning than
that given to it by physics or materialistic chemistry? Will it be towards
well-known shores that the surge of the great waters will bear them,
when they have lost their footing in the deluge which is approaching?
Will it be towards the peaks of a new Ararat that they will find themselves
carried, towards the heights of light and sunshine, where there is a
ledge on which to place the feet in safety, or perchance is it to a fathomless
abyss that will swallow them as soon as they try to struggle against
the irresistible billows of an unknown element?

We must prepare and study truth under every aspect, endeavoring to
ignore nothing, if we do not wish to fall into the abyss of the unknown
when the hour shall strike. It is useless to leave it to chance and to
await the intellectual and psychic crisis which is preparing, with indifference,
if not with crass disbelief, saying that at the worst the rising tide
will carry us naturally towards the shore; for it is very likely that
the tidal wave will cast up nothing but a corpse. The strife will be
terrible in any case between brutal materialism and blind fanaticism
on the one hand, and philosophy and mysticism on the other - mysticism,
that veil of more or less translucency which hides the eternal Truth.

But it is not materialism which will gain the upper hand. Every fanatic
whose ideas isolate him from the universal axiom, “There is no
religion higher than Truth” will see himself by that very fact
rejected, like an unworthy stone from the new Archway called Humanity.
Tossed by the waves, driven by the winds, reeling in that element which
is so terrible because unknown, he will soon find himself engulfed ...

Yes, it must be so and it cannot be otherwise, when the artificial
and chilly flame of modem materialism is extinguished for lack of fuel.
Those [9] who cannot become used to the idea of a spiritual Ego,
a living soul and an eternal Spirit within their material shell (which
owes its illusory existence to those principles); those for whom the
great hope of an existence beyond the grave is a vexation, merely the
symbol of an unknown quantity, or else the subject of a belief sui generis,
the result of theological and mediumistic hallucinations - these will
do well to prepare for the worst disappointment the future could possibly
have in store for them. For from the depths of the dark, muddy waters
of materiality which, on every side, hide from them the horizons of the
great Beyond, a mystic force is rising during these last years of the
century. At most it is but the first gentle rustling, but it is a superhuman
rustling - “supernatural” only for the superstitious and
the ignorant. The spirit of truth is passing now over the face of the
dark waters, and in parting them, is compelling them to disgorge their
spiritual treasures. This spirit is a force that can neither be hindered
nor stopped. Those who recognize it and feel that this is the supreme
moment of their salvation will be uplifted by it and carried beyond the
illusions of the great astral serpent. The joy they will experience will
be so poignant and intense, that if they were not mentally isolated from
their bodies of flesh, the beatitude would pierce them like sharp steel.
It is not pleasure that they will experience, but a bliss which is a
foretaste of the knowledge of the gods, the knowledge of good and evil,
and of the fruits of the tree of life.

But although the man of today may be a fanatic, a skeptic, or a mystic,
he must become thoroughly convinced that it is useless for him to struggle
against the two moral forces today unleashed and in supreme contest.
He is at the mercy of these two adversaries, and no intermediary force
is capable of protecting him. It is but a question of choice, whether
to let himself be carried along without a struggle on the wave of mystical
evolution, or to writhe against the reaction of moral and psychic evolution,
and so find himself engulfed in the Maelstrom of the new tide. At the
present time, the whole world, with its centers of high intelligence
and human culture, its focal points of political, artistic, literary,
and commercial life, is in a turmoil; everything is shaking and crumbling
in its movement towards reform. It is useless to remain blind, it is
useless to hope that anyone can remain neutral between the two contending
forces; one has to choose either the one or the other, or be crushed
between them. The man who imagines that he has chosen freedom, but who,
nevertheless, remains submerged in that boiling caldron, foaming with
foul matter called social life, most terribly betrays his own divine
Self, a betrayal which will blind that Self in the course of a long series
of future incarnations. All of you who hesitate on the path of Theosophy
and the occult sciences, who are trembling on the golden threshold of
truth - the only one within your grasp, for all the others have failed
you one after another - squarely face the great Reality which is offered
you. It is to mystics only that these words are addressed, for them alone
have they any importance; for those who have already made their choice
they are vain and useless. But you, Occultists, Kabbalists and Theosophists,
you well know that a Word, [10] old as the world, though new to
you, has been sounded at the beginning of this cycle, and the potentiality
of which, unperceived by others, lies hidden in the sum of the digits
of the year 1889; you well know that a note has just been struck which
has never been heard by mankind of this era; and that a new Idea is revealed,
ripened by the forces of evolution. This Idea differs from everything
that has been produced in the nineteenth century; it is identical; however,
with the thought that has been the dominant tone and the keynote of every
century, especially the last - absolute freedom of thought for humanity.

Why try to strangle and suppress what cannot be destroyed? Why struggle
when there is no other choice than allowing yourselves to be raised on
the crest of the spiritual wave to the very heavens, beyond the stars
and the universes, or to be engulfed in the yawning abyss of an ocean
of matter? Vain are your efforts to sound the unfathomable, to reach
the ultimate of this wonderful matter so glorified in our century; for
its roots grow in the spirit and in the Absolute; they do not exist,
though they are eternally. This constant contact with flesh, blood
and bones, the illusion of differentiated matter, does nothing but blind
you; and the more you penetrate into the region of the impalpable atoms
of chemistry, the more you will be convinced that they exist only in
your imagination. Do you truly expect to find therein every Truth and
every reality of existence? For Death is at everyone’s door, waiting
to close it behind a beloved soul that escapes from its prison, upon
the soul which alone has made the body a reality; how can eternal love
associate itself with the molecules of matter which change and disappear?
...

“But you, friends and readers, you who aspire to something more
than the life of the squirrel everlastingly turning the same wheel; you
who are pot content with the seething of the caldron whose turmoil results
in nothing; you who do not mistake the deaf echoes, as old as the world,
for the divine voice of truth; prepare yourselves for a future of which
but few in your midst have dared to dream, unless they have already entered
upon the path. For you have chosen a path that, although thorny at the
start, soon widens out and leads you to the divine truth. You are free
to doubt while still at the beginning of the way, you are free to decline
to accept on hearsay what is taught respecting the source and the cause
of that truth, but you are always able to hear what its voice is telling
you, and you can always study the effects of the creative force coming
from the depths of the unknown. The arid soil upon which the present
generation of men is moving, at the close of this age of spiritual dearth
and of purely material surfeit, has need of a divine omen above its horizon,
a rainbow, as symbol of hope. For of all the past centuries our nineteenth
has been the most criminal. It is criminal in its frightful selfishness,
in its skepticism which grimaces at the very idea of anything beyond
the material; in its idiotic indifference to all that does not pertain
to the personal self, more than any of the previous centuries of ignorant
barbarism and intellectual darkness. Our century must be saved from [11] itself
before its last hour strikes. For all those, who see the sterility and
folly of an existence blinded by materialism and ferociously indifferent
to the fate of the neighbour, this is the moment to act; now is the time
for them to devote all their energies, all their courage and all their
efforts to a great intellectual reform. This reform can only be accomplished
by Theosophy, and, let us add, by Occultism or the wisdom of the Orient.
The paths that lead to it are many; but the wisdom is one. Artistic souls
envision it, those who suffer dream of it, the pure in heart know it.
Those who work for others cannot remain blinded to its reality, though
they may not always recognize it by its name. Only light and empty minds,
egotistical and vain drones, confused by their own buzzing, will remain
ignorant of the supreme ideal. They will continue to exist until life
becomes a grievous burden to them.

It must be distinctly remembered, however: these pages are not written
for the masses. They are neither an appeal for reforms, nor an effort
to win over to our views the fortunate in life; they are addressed solely
to those who are constitutionally able to comprehend them, to those who
suffer, to those who hunger and thirst after some Reality in this world
of Chinese Shadows. As for those, why should they not show themselves
courageous enough to abandon their world of frivolous occupations, their
pleasures above all and even their personal interests, except when those
interests form part of their duties to their families or others? No one
is so busy or so poor that he cannot create a noble ideal and follow
it. Why then hesitate in clearing a path towards this ideal, through
all obstacles, over every stumbling block, every petty hindrance of social
life, in order to march straight forward until the goal is reached? Those
who would make this effort would soon find that the “strait gate” and
the “thorny path” lead to the broad valleys of limitless
horizon, to that state where there is no more death, because one feels
oneself re-becoming a god! It is true that the first conditions required
to reach it are an absolute disinterestedness, a boundless devotion to
the welfare of others, and a complete indifference to the world and its
opinions. In order to make the first step on that ideal path, the motive
must be absolutely pure; not an unworthy thought must attract the eyes
from the end in view, not a doubt or hesitation shackle the feel. There
do exist men and women thoroughly qualified for this, whose only aim
is to dwell under the Aegis of their Divine Nature. Let them, at least,
take courage to live the life and not conceal it from the eyes of others!
No one else’s opinion should be considered superior to the voice
of one’s own conscience. Let that conscience, therefore, developed
to its highest degree, guide us in all the ordinary acts of life. As
to the conduct of our inner life, let us concentrate our entire attention
on the ideal we have set ourselves, and look beyond, without paying the
slightest attention to the mud upon our feet ...

Those who are capable of making this effort are true Theosophists;
all others are but members, more or less indifferent, and very often
useless. [12]

*

THE TASK AHEADBoris de Zirkoff

The writings of H. P. Blavatsky and of the Adept-Brothers whose direct
agent she was, are the foundation upon which the modern Theosophical
Movement rests. They embody in today’s languages the essence of
the Trans-Himalayan Esoteric Knowledge which is the fountainhead of all
genuine Occultism on this earth.

The important historical Series now widely known under the title of
the Collected Writings of H. P. Blavatsky has currently reached
an advanced stage, but is as yet far from completion. A survey of what
has been done, and what is yet to be accomplished, may be of value here.

As is generally known throughout the Theosophical Movement, ten volumes
of the Series have been published to date, covering H.P.B.’s writings
from 1874 to the middle of 1889. Volumes V, VI, VII, VIII, IX and X have
been available for some time and are in print. Volumes I, II, III and
IV have been out of print for many years, mainly owing to the fact that
their stock was destroyed in the London “blitz.”

Volume One has just appeared once more in print, greatly enlarged
and completely revised. It covers the period of 1874-1878 and is indispensable
source-material for the origins of the modern Theosophical Movement.

Volume II has also been fully revised, and Volumes III and IV are in
process of being re-edited and improved; but it is uncertain when they
can be published.

Of the material contained in Volumes I through X, only a few items
were published previously as separate books, namely a number of Occult
Tales which appeared in collected form in 1892 under the title of Nightmare
Tales; and the Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge (now in Vol. X).

Material from H.P.B.’s indefatigable pen produced in the period
from 1889 to the time of her death seventy-five years ago, in May, 1891,
and certain writings published posthumously, as well as a number of Essays
written earlier but whose actual date cannot be definitely ascertained,
will fill another Four Volumes. Of these, Vol. XI is entirely completed
and ready to be set up when opportunity arises; Vol. XII is almost ready;
and Volumes XIII and XIV are outlined and partially compiled, but still
require a great deal of work.

The Key to Theosophy, and The Voice of the
Silence,
both originally published in 1889, naturally belong together and will
eventually form one Volume of the Collected Writings.

The same applies to the complete English translation of H.P.B.’s
Russian Serial Stories: From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan; The
Enigmatical Tribes of the Blue Hills; The Durbar in Lahore;
and miscellaneous short Essays published in two Russian periodicals.
These writings, so voluminous as to fill two large volumes, do not have
to be numbered unless this is found to be desirable; these two volumes
may simply bear their respective titles. Work on the text of this material
has now been completed, and [13] only a small number of technical
terms, mostly from Oriental vernaculars, await checking.

We now come to H.P.B.’s first great work, Isis Unveiled,
whose impact upon the reading public does not seem to have worn off even
today, as every new edition of it sells out in record time. An entirely
new edition of Isis Unveiled has now been prepared as an integral
part of the Collected Writings. The overwhelming majority of quotations
have been checked with the originals, and all required corrections made.
Alterations suggested by H.P.B. herself have been incorporated. Faulty
Hebrew and Greek scripts have been revised. No changes whatsoever have
been made in H.P.B.’s own wording. An entirely new Index has been
prepared, which, due to its size, may require a separate small volume,
as is the case with The Secret Doctrine. A special Essay has been
prepared outlining the facts about how Isis Unveiled was written
and what H.P.B. herself and others had to say about it.

In regard to The Secret Doctrine, considered to be H.P.B.’s
magnum opus, some of the points mentioned in connection with Isis
Unveiled apply as well. Although the text of the two original volumes
of that work were edited with a good deal more care by the Keightleys
in London, than was the case with H.P.B.’s first great work in
New York, a considerable number of errors did creep in; these, in spite
of many editions published since, have been only partially corrected
and require some attention, checking and verifying various passages quoted
and references given throughout the work. The work to be done is not
as extensive as in the case of Isis Unveiled, but is nevertheless
time consuming.

It is almost needless to say that the edition of The Secret Doctrine to
be an integral part of the Collected Writings , must be the two
volume original edition, without the admixture of the miscellaneous
material published in 1897 under the totally misleading title of “Secret
Doctrine, Vol. III.” This material rightfully belongs among the
scattered fragments of writing which, for one reason or another, she
did not include in her magnum opus.

An exhaustive Index to The Secret Doctrine should be produced
in a separate volume, together with all the Bibliographical data available.

Finally we come to H.P.B.’s innumerable Letters written throughout
her lifetime to hundreds of individuals all over the world. A systematic
collection of such Letters was started a number of years ago, and has
now attained very considerable proportions. All known Letters, whether
published or unpublished, have been arranged chronologically, at least
approximately so, as many of them are undated and can be classified only
by their context or references to them in other source-material. It is
estimated that this combined material will fill three separate volumes.
The text of H.P.B.’s Letters requires many Editorial Notes and
Comments, in order to make some of them intelligible, owing to the many
names of little known people and various events mentioned in them.

It is taken for granted that such a collection cannot claim to be complete
and final, because more of H.P.B.’s Letters will be discovered
as years go by, as is the case with the [14] correspondence of
most historically known individuals. Thus it is quite possible that a
further volume of Letters may become necessary in the future.

All Letters written by H.P.B. in French and in Russian have been carefully
translated into English, whenever the originals were accessible. The
French text will also be published.

While the actual compiling and editorial work connected with this overall
effort may be limited, relatively speaking, to only a few people, the
actual publication of the individual volumes of this Series depends upon
the world-wide co-operation and interest of all students of Theosophy,
upon their financial generosity and their eagerness to secure the volumes
as they come off the press. The printing of the various volumes, as they
become ready, is not backed by any endowment fund or income wholly devoted
to the end in view, much as this would be desirable.

The Series embodying the sum total of H.P.B.’s literary heritage
to humanity can be brought to a successful conclusion only with the wholehearted
collaboration of all students the world over who are anxious to, and
vitally interested in, supporting this effort by all means available,
until we can be collectively assured that H.P.B.’s epochal writings
are available in their entirety, nm only to individual students here
and there, but to Institutions of Learning and Public Libraries which
are even today increasingly interested in obtaining the Collected
Writings of H. P. Blavatsky.

*

AN ABRIDGEMENT OF THE SECRET DOCTRINE

There are many thoughtful people who do not have time for a deep study
of THE SECRET DOCTRINE but who would like to know something of the important
matters contained in it. An abridged version has been compiled to supply
this need. This book is the product of a team of scholars from many parts
of the theosophical world. It can be regarded as an introduction to the
complete work, but it is not a substitute for it. The Abridgement contains
the basic principles in the actual words of Mme. Blavatsky from the 1888
edition of THE SECRET DOCTRINE. A biography of H.P.B. and a bibliography
of her works are included.
This Abridgement is edited by Miss Elizabeth Preston and Christmas Humphreys.
It will be published on May 8, 1966, the 75th Anniversary of Madame Blavatsky’s
death.
PRICE: £1. 17s. 6d. Postage 3s extra.
Order from: THE THEOSOPHICAL BOOKSHOP, 68 Great Russell Street, London W.C.
1, England. [15]

*

THE LION-HEARTEDMontague A. Machell

“THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH”

The vaster the vision, the deeper the anguish.

The despairs and disillusionments of World Helpers a little in advance
of their time are familiar to all of us. In every age much of society
has opposed them and been willing to speak no good of them. In the case
of World Teachers, dedicated to changing the trend and pattern of existing
society - “crucifixion is too good!” cries that society.

To stand on the peaks of Time, casting her gaze into the far past of
undreamed splendor, and letting it follow a slow spiritual decline to
the unthinkable degradations of current patterns of living, then daring
to declare the ascent destined to be made by that society, is
the part played by a rare, heroic Lion-Hearted lover of Humanity.

H. P. Blavatsky played this role, inspired and illumined by the guidance
and instructions of the Lodge - those Masters of Compassion pledged to
the fulfilling of the Pattern of Spiritual Unfoldment that Theosophy
declares to be the destiny of this Humanity of ours. To suggest the sublime
motivation of her accepted martyrdom, she declared: “There is no
religion higher than Truth,” implementing her declaration by launching
a Movement, the heart of which is a nucleus of Universal Brotherhood
without distinction of race, creed, cast or color. She did this with
eyes wide open, and with a depth of esoteric understanding of human nature
and human destiny that made society’s inevitable reaction to her
sublime fortitude terrifyingly clear.

She herself wrote: “With few exceptions, no man of the world,
no materialist, will ever believe in the existence of such adepts, or
even in the possibility of such spiritual or psychic development. ‘The
(ancient) fool hath said in his heart, There is no God’; the modern
fool says ‘There are no adepts on earth, they are figments of your
diseased fancy’.”

How profound and timeless an awareness of the ancient Wisdom-Religion’s
Program of Unfoldment of this humanity must have been hers, to have manifested
such divine compassion for what she called “the Great Orphan, Humanity”!
She devoted long years of thankless and agonizing living to the inauguration
of a New Order of Ages, wherein the upward trend of the cycle might become
perceptible to a small handful of dedicated members.

With the release that death brought her, the implementing of that upward
turn towards a veritable New Order of Ages was put in the hands of her
loyal supporters.

In these critical hours of the turning tide in human destiny, a life
is in their hands - a life that embodied the will and purpose of the
Lodge. Each day, each hour is steeped in the splendor of that Lion-Hearted
servant of the Masters. The daily thought and act of that small Brotherhood
to whom this ancient Truth was intrusted is rendered radiant with the
promise each is pledged to fulfill. [16]

To fail the Lion-Hearted, to fail the Lodge were to violate this sanctuary
of Truth, to desecrate the Vision, from a vast and momentous antiquity,
which H. P. Blavatsky left in our keeping.

Today, Life is more sublime, Faith more vast, Achievement more limitless,
because in you and me the Pledge that we keep drenches the heart of us
with her splendor :.. - TRUTH’ S diamond-fire the Lion-Hearted
kindled here on earth!

*

THE EXOTERIC AND ESOTERIC H.P.B.Gottfried de Purucker

[Excerpts from a talk given in 1931 by the late Leader of the Point
Loma Theosophical Society.]

... H. P. B. came because it was time for her to come. She was one
of the series of Teachers which human history shows us to come at certain
stated periods throughout the ages, one Teacher after the other, and
always when the time is right and ripe, and never by chance. She was
one of the links in what the ancient Greek Initiates called the Living
Chain of Hermes, the Golden Chain, in connexion with the passing on of
mystic and esoteric light and truth, and she came in regular serial succession
to the Teachers who had preceded her, each one of them sent forth from
the great association of Sages and Seers, variously called the Mahatmans,
the Elder Brothers of mankind, and by other names. These Teachers, these
Leaders and Guides of mankind, come and teach according to law, esoteric
and natural law, when the time calls for their coming; otherwise how
logically explain their serial existence?

... Grand and sublime ethics were the basis of what this noble Messenger
of the Masters, our H. P. B., taught. She showed us that ethics, that
morals, are based on the very structure and laws of Nature herself, that
ethics and morals are no mere human convention, that right is eternally
right no matter how men may argue about the details, and that wrong is
eternally wrong. Right is harmony, and wrong is disharmony. Harmony is
Nature’s heart of love and music and peace, for it is equilibrium;
and disharmony is discord, lack of peace, unmusical discords in Nature
and throughout human life; for all Nature is ensouled just as man is,
and this doctrine of ethics is one of the noblest of the teachings which
she brought. She taught us - and listen, my Brothers, to this - she taught
us of our inseparable oneness, of our unity, with the·heart of
Being, so that death, that grizzly phantom of the Occident, no longer
exists as a fearsome object for the Theosophist, because the genuine
Theosophist who understands his philosophy looks upon death as the grandest
Adventure that it is possible for a human being to undertake, a sublime
and magnificent initiation into other worlds, into a nobler, a grander,
and a greater life.

One of a serial succession of [17] Teachers, she came in the
rhythmical order of the laws which control our planet. She came indeed
at the beginning of one Messianic Cycle of 2160 years and at the end
of the preceding cycle of the same term. She was the Messenger for her
age, that is, for the age to come - the one who was to sound a new keynote,
which yet, mystically speaking, is as old as the ages, and in a certain
very true but little known sense, she was an Avatara - an Avatara of
a certain type or kind, for there are different kinds of Avataras. This
is one truth concerning H. P. B. that we must he careful and watchful
as regards teaching it to the world, for the world has no conception
of the many recondite meanings of the Avatara-doctrine. Every Teacher
who comes to teach man comprises not only his or her body and an unusually
received psychological apparatus, but is likewise at times infilled with
the holy fire of a greater Soul, and therefore is de facto an
Avatara of a kind. Just as Jesus called the Christ was an Avatara of
one kind for his age, so was she, our beloved H. P. B., an Avatara of
another kind for her age ...

Two thousand one hundred and sixty years before H. P. B.’s birth
the particular Messianic Cycle began which, as its centuries followed
one the other, plunged European countries into the darkness of the Middle
Ages. Today, more or less 2160 years afterwards, a new cycle opened when
she was born, a rising cycle which should bring light, peace, knowledge,
wisdom, to men; and it is the duty of us Theosophists, members of the
Theosophical Movement … it is our duty, as Brother-Theosophists,
as common members of the Theosophical Movement, to see to it that the
Message which she brought to us, and gave into our hands as a holy charge,
shall be kept pure and unadulterated, and shall be passed on to our descendants
of succeeding generations just as we have received it. “As I have
received it, thus must I pass it on, not otherwise. Iti maya
srutam: Thus have I heard.”

I think that the greatest tribute that our hearts and minds can give
to our beloved H. P. B ., is to know her exactly as she was, exactly
as she was in truth, not merely according to what anybody says about
her. The best way to see her as she was, is to study her, and her books
which indeed are she. Then you will know the real H. P. B., for you will
use the test of your intelligence and of your heart, to judge her by
what she herself was and by what she produced, not by what someone else
may say about her. Let us carryon the torch of light that she gave into
our hands ...

There is a psychological wonder, a mystery, in H. P. B., for H. P.
B. was a mystery. Since she came and taught, what do we find our greatest
modern scientific researchers and thinkers telling us today? Adumbrations
of many of the doctrines that she taught: doctrines, so far as these
scientific researchers are concerned, which are based upon deductions
made from the researches into physical nature that those scientists are
following. Before the scientists found the facts, she taught these facts,
and she taught them in the face of ridicule and scorn and opposition
from the Church on the one hand and from Science on the other hand, and
from the established privileges and prerogatives of all kinds - social,
religious, philosophical, [18] scientific, what not - which surrounded
her.

In her there was strength, spiritual strength, for
she set men’s
souls aflame; in her there was intellectual power, for she taught men
to think and to have a new vision; and in her also there was psychological
power, for she smashed the mayavic psychological wall which man in his
folly had builded around his consciousness.

Now reflect upon what all this means. Could you have done it? Would
you have had the courage to dare it? Could you, single-handed, face the
world in a similar manner today? There is a cause and a reason for the
work that she wrought. We today see the effects, we know the historical
phenomenon of her life and work; but what was the noumenal cause? It
was the living spiritual and intellectual fires within her. It was the
esoteric side of H. P. Blavatsky which enabled her to do what she did
...

Take into consideration the facts in H. P. B.’s life. Don’t
let your minds be swayed by the tales that have been told about her.
Think them over for yourself, because thoughtful reflexion is one of
the first duties of a Theosophist, and then draw your own conclusions.
Indeed, the stories that have been told about H. P. B. interest us simply
as a psychological phenomenon of the weakness of human thinking. They
also interest us, not because they accurately describe H. P. B., for
they don’t, but simply because they describe the incapacities of
the men and women who try to explain her. You might as well try to put
the ocean into a teacup as to encompass the character, the constitution,
of H. P. B. in the yarns professing to be biographical that have been
written about her. At the best they contain certain facts gathered in
random fashion from her own family - who understood her perhaps less
than her Theosophical friends did, and who said so - gathered together
and strung along a certain thread of narrative. Is the reading of such
tales the pathway to understanding one who did what she did?

H. P. B. was of course a woman in body, remember that; and invigorating
and inflaming this body with its brain-mind was the inner divine Sun,
the ‘inner Buddha,’ the living ‘Christ within’ as
the mystical Christians of today say. But between this divine fire and
the receptive and mystically-trained and educated brain of the woman,
there was a psychological apparatus, commonly spoken of in Western parlance
as the ‘human soul,’ which in the case of her - for she was
an Initiate of the Order of the Buddhas of Compassion and Peace - could
at times step aside and allow the entrance into the vacancy thus left
of a ‘human soul’ loftier by far than even hers.

Thus was she an Avatara of her kind. It was this Buddhic Splendor which
thus infilled the vacancy that she so gladly left for use, which in large
part wrought the works of wonder that H. P. B. wrought. You may remember
that in her writings she often makes a distinction between what she calls ‘H.
P. B.’ and ‘H. P. Blavatsky.’ ‘H. P. Blavatsky’ was
the woman, the chela, the woman-chela, the aspiring, learning, splendid,
noble, courageous chela. But ‘H. P. B.’ was the Master’s
mind speaking through her. Body and spirit, one entity; then the intermediate
psychological apparatus, commonly called the ‘soul,’ [19] temporarily
removable at will. In fact - and let me tell you the truth - when our
H. P. B. was sent as the Messenger, that psychological apparatus in large
part remained behind. Think! This fact accounts for the so-called contrarieties
and contradictions of her character that the people who attempted to
write about her saw - and saw very plainly, because they could not help
seeing - but which they did not understand, and by which they often misjudged
her and misunderstood her. But when the holy flame had infilled this
vacancy, then there was H. P. B. the Teacher, the Sage, the Seer,
the Teacher of great natural scientific truths which modem science today
is but beginning to show to be true, the Teacher of a great hope to mankind,
the giver of a Vision to men, the framer and former of a new Philosophy-Religion-Science
for men ...

Now you have it: the body, the woman, the gentlewoman, well-trained,
well-bred, ill-educated; the divine flame within her that occasionally
seized her brain as it were - and then she spoke like a pythoness, like
a prophetess, like an oracle at Delphi; and similarly so at other times,
when she was infilled, as the Avatara, with the holy flame of one of
the Great Ones. Then she was the Sage and Seer, and wrote her books,
foreshadowing in these books what later has come to pass, and pointing
out to men the dangers of a belief divorced from ethical rules.

Let us recognize H. P. B. for what she was; and mind you, my friends,
mind you this thought: We who have studied H. P. B. love her, are faithful
to her in heart and mind, yet we shall set our faces like flint, like
stone, against any attempt to worship her, to make a new Jesus out of
her. You know what the Great Ones have told us: More than anything else
do we desire a Brotherhood among men, a Brotherhood which will save mankind
from the catastrophes which are facing it, brought about by mankind’s
own folly. The catastrophes, the cataclysms, moral and even physical,
which are even now facing us, will surely come upon us unless men change
their habits of thought and, in consequence, their acts, their conduct.
We shall set our faces like a stone against any attempt to introduce
a new religion among men, which our Great Teachers have already pointed
out to be, and which is, one of the greatest curses and banes afflicting
mankind at the present time: belief in an outside Savior instead of fidelity
to the divine spirit within. For there within indeed lie all truth, all
harmony, all wisdom, all love, all peace. The inner god within each one
of you as an individual is of the very heart of the heart of the Universe,
and concerning that heart of the Universe, each one of you is It.

H. P. B. was indeed a mystery, but while she was a mystery, this does
not mean a ‘mystery’ in the sense in which this word is commonly
used in the Occident. I mean a mystery in the sense of the ancient Greeks,
when they spoke of the ancient Mysteries and the ancient Mystery-Schools
- something which is hid, but can be known, something that is occult
and holy, but which can be communicated.

H. P. B. can be understood; and when we understand her, we love her
the more; the more we understand [20] her, the greater grows our
love, our veneration, for her. Let it never happen, therefore, that we
Theosophists become so false to the trust which she gave to us that we
shall turn our backs to the Mystic East, towards which she always pointed,
and worship the Avatara. Let us be faithful to our trust. We can love,
we can venerate, we can copy the example of magnificent courage and sublime
hope that she gave to us. We can try to become like unto this great Woman,
and unto many others like her who have appeared in the past, who will
appear in the future, others far greater than she, but let us never set
her on a pinnacle as was done, alas! alas! in the case of one of the
Teachers in the early years of Christianity.

No greater tribute could we render to our beloved H. P. B. than by
continuing faithfully, and in our love of her, the work which she so
grandly begun.

*

H. P. BLAVATSKY AND THE ATOMIC AGEW. Emmett Small

With the confluence of certain planets, marking a moment in time and
space heavy with destiny, the Earth stood poised for a breath before
entering on May 11, 1941 - the Atomic Age. One hundred and ten years
before, H. P. Blavatsky had been born.

What is the stark challenge of this time in which,
with ever increasing and fateful pressures, we live within the penumbra
of total destruction? And what has H. P. Blavatsky to do with it? The
challenge is to learn to survive as a human family, that is, friendly
and understandingly - there
is really no other way - while recognizing around us forces and powers
which at the press of a button can blast the nations of this globe into
darkness or a lingering mockery of human mutilation, disease, and corruption.
The challenge is in accepting the whole problem as it affects the tomorrows
of future generations, not merely the immediate todays; in seeing the whole man,
who when he quits this world, endures somewhere, not merely the
entity of a few strutting decades; in recognizing civilization not as
divided into ethnic areas to be pitted against each other, to be edged,
juggled, pushed, or blasted out of a corner of this world, but as a global
civilization composed of groups, in turn made up of individuals, with
equal rights for survival and opportunity for flowering into maturity.
The challenge is not only in controlling our mental energies but in directing
them toward constructive use of the power at hand.* (* Twenty-one years
have passed since the first atomic bomb was dropped. Three major powers
now have nuclear weapons. Other countries may soon add their names to
the nuclear roster. Those in the know have presented us with some cold-blooded
statistics. Nuclear war would wipe out 135 million from this country,
200,000 million from that. There would be no victor. It would end not
only in national suicide, but in international suicide, for no country,
no population, can be fully protected. There is also the ever-present
possibility of error or accident. Collision of the U.S. B-52 and its
jet tanker last January 17 in refueling over Palomares, Spain, is an
instance. What now are the everyday thoughts of that country or that
village when suddenly out of their blue skies radioactive material descends
on them? Can you wonder at their concern, their questioning consternation?

I wonder, is it sufficiently reassuring to adopt the attitude of Winston
Churchill, as conveyed by his remark quoted by Stewart Alsop in The
Saturday Evening Post: “I sometimes have the awed thought that
when everyone can kill everyone else, no one will want to kill anyone
at all”? There are always the madmen; there are always the accidents.
When power is universally distributed, does that make it any the more
safe? Perhaps, to some degree, but one cannot be certain.)

And the answer? H. P. Blavatsky gave it. Was it a parliament of the
world, a United Nations? No, useful and perhaps necessary as such world-forums
may be. The answer goes to the root of things. It is Ideas. Not [21] new-hatched
schemes, but old eternal ideas, fresh with the reviving force of renewal
in them, because they are ideas rooted in the very structure, essence
and workings of the universe.

And what are they? First and fundamentally, that the whole human race,
from the aspect of soul and spirit, are emanations, seeds, flowerings
from One Immutable Principle, Source of atom and galaxy and all the beings
within the endless fields of space. Why should we war, why should we
seek to destroy, when we recognize this root-idea of our essential unity
as children of a Universal Parent? Are not then all the races of the
world, all the families of our far-flung continents, excepting none,
united and equal in the sense of soul-spirit beings, learning and growing
in this classroom globe of Earth?

Word-spinning, a dreamer’s dream, you say; wake up to the harsh
facts of what actually exists around you! Well, we have had time to wake
up, and the galling, maddening facts are still unsolved, and never to
be solved until we do begin to view individuals as the branches of one
great ever-living Tree of Life - the Yggdrasill, sons and daughters of
one parent. Eloquently H. P. Blavatsky points to the two great laws of
Karma and Reincarnation, which, with the fundamental idea of the essential
unity of the human race, provide the mental stimulus and give the accurate
perspective to encourage men to live, first honestly and rightly with
themselves, then understandingly and compassionately with others.

Karma, inescapable action and reaction, is the law which unerringly
adjusts effect to cause; it applies everywhere, in worlds physical, mental,
psychological, spiritual. If people could really believe that
they will reap what they sow (and not something else) they would recognize
that they possess the mental steering apparatus to direct wisely the
powers and forces within them and around them. But people do not want
to accept responsibility. For that reason they reject the idea of Karma.
It isn’t that they can point to its being illogic. They want the
Aswattha, of all civilizations - to escape the consequences of their
actions. And they will find extraordinary ways to seek to fool themselves,
adopting most subtle ruses to achieve [22] this self-blindfolding.
Love of God, they will say, sets a man free from all mistakes of the
past, and all results of the mistakes of the past. By “the grace
of God” you eliminate the effects of what you have done. Life is
wonderful! Be happy! Leave it to God! Can anything be more unreasoning,
at best more purely sentimental? Can anything actually be more immoral?
Let selfishness and greed and ambition lead you to calumny, to theft,
to murder - only repent and leave the effects to God, while you ready
yourself for yet another move downward of indulgence or crime! Thus wars,
thus atrocities, thus the vilest of crimes can not only be forgiven,
but their consequences checked and negated! We see the tragic harvest
of this illogical belief around us everywhere. We pamper ourselves for
the immediate relief, for the immediate release from self-made pressures;
we put off to the “future” what courage could solve today
- and then we join the chorus which chants that civilization trembles
at the cliff-edge!

But Nature’s laws - intrinsically the breathing and performance
of the universe itself - cannot be thwarted. And Karma is, as H.P.B.
says, the ultimate law of the universe. If we think it through, we recognize
it as

“... a Power divine which moves to good ...
Do right - it recompenseth! Do one wrong -
The equal retribution must be made,
Though DHARMA tarry long.”*
(* Sir Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia.)

And what is the companion-idea embodied in an answer to the challenge
of this Atomic Age? It is Reincarnation. It is the great idea of anastasis or
ever-renewed existence. You, the real you, never ceases to be. It is
impossible not to be. Our place of existence now is on this Earth
globe; and the method by which we persist in our growth and experience
on this manifested world - atom bomb or no atom bomb - is through repeated
lives on Earth achieved by a series of incarnations followed by resting
periods of sleep and inner adjustment. This is reincarnation, the process
of reimbodying the spiritual nature of a being into appropriate vehicles.
From the unmanifested worlds - but yet a part of our Earth globe and
solar system - the human being returns a human being, but with the opportunity
(checked by karma) of being a better human being, with growing powers,
widening expanse of consciousness, ever more conscious direction of its
activities in harmony with universal law, passing with each successive
reincarnation higher and higher through the classrooms of life. As H.
P. Blavatsky writes:

“... for logic, consistency, profound philosophy,
divine mercy and equity, this doctrine of Reincarnation has not its equal
on earth. It is a belief in a perpetual progress for each incarnating
Ego, or divine soul, in an evolution from the outward into the inward,
from the material to the Spiritual, arriving at the end of each stage
at absolute unity with the divine Principle. From strength to strength,
from the beauty and perfection of one plane to the greater beauty and
perfection of another, with accessions of new glory, of fresh knowledge
and power in each cycle, such is the destiny of every Ego, which thus
becomes its[23] own
Savior in each world and incarnation.”* (* The Key to Theosophy,
pp. 154-55. Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe in 1899; Bulwer-Lytton, Zanoni in
1842.)

But who is H. P. Blavatsky? Why is she not better known? Why, if her
philosophy is so practical and so evidently needed, is it not accepted
by millions? ... And that I leave for your own thoughts. Why indeed?

But for a final thrust and challenge this much may I suggest: that
H.P.B. is not better known because Theosophists today do not recognize
her for what she really was. She brought the sanest, most comprehensive,
logical, intellectually appealing, spiritually uplifting philosophy the
world has ever had. She did so at a critical time so that ideas of the
Wisdom-Religion, the Perennial Philosophy, the Esoteric Science, would
be current when the Atomic Age dawned. The Ideas are here, and in the
ambient mental-spiritual atmosphere they encircle the globe - for all
to seize who will.

The Nineteenth Century produced titans: Herbert Spencer wrote First
Principles in 1862; Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection in 1859; Ernst John Henry Cardinal Newman, A
Grammar of Assent in 1870; Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra in
1883; H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine in 1888. In varying
degree they shook their century: philosophy, religion, science, occultism.
Take your choice! But only one figure combined them all. “To
change the whole current of European thought ... is H.P.B.’s
accomplishment,” wrote one reviewer.* (*V. B. N. in The Sunday
Referee, London , Jan. 7, 1934 .) But she did more. She gave what
alone can save the Twentieth Century from destruction. She gave the
needed Ideas. To survive, the Atomic Age must adopt and live by them: “Universal
Unity and Causation; Human Solidarity; the Law of Karma; Reincarnation.” No
social reform or even basic amelioration can be successfully achieved
and endure unless these great fundamental theosophical principles are
made part of the tissue of everyday living and thought. Without them
the world may go down in blood and disease and deformity. With them,
the Atomic Age can flower with strength and confidence, not only in
the knowledge of survival, but with the blessed assurance that unfolding
time will bring ever-growing understanding and accord.

*

A WORTHWHILE SUGGESTION

One of our valued contributors
suggests that in this year which marks the 75th anniversary of H.P.B.’s
death, Theosophical periodicals and journals throughout the world devote
some pages in each issue to a consideration of the life and work of our
common Inspirer and Teacher; and that articles, both from her own pen,
and from the pen of her present-day pupils, be written presenting one
or another aspect of H.P.B.’s work, mission and purpose.
Suggestive titles may be: “Who Was H. P. Blavatsky?” - “The
Writing of The Secret Doctrine.” - “H.P.B. and the Spiritual
Way.” - “The Mystery of H.P.B.’s Composite Nature.” - “Prophecies
of H.P.B. and their Fulfillment.” - “H. P. Blavatsky and the
Atomic Age.” - “H.P.B. and the Rebirth of Gnosticism.” [24]

Here is good news for all students of Theosophy, especially those interested
in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky!
Out of print for thirty years, Volume One of her Collected Writings is
now available.
Originally published in 1933 by Rider & Co.; a large portion of its stock
was destroyed in the London “blitz” and the Volume became a collector’s
item. Many students and numerous Libraries have expressed through the years
their desire to secure a copy of it - as well as copies of Vols. II, III and
IV which suffered the same fate.
This Volume is not merely a Second Edition of the earlier one. In addition
to most of the material of this early Volume, on Magic, Spiritualism, Occult
Phenomena, the nature and dangers of Mediumship, etc., the present Volume includes
much new material from H.P.B.’s indefatigable pen.
The reader will find in it: H.P.B.’s Travel-Impressions from Hungary
in 1867: her inimitable pen-and-ink notations and comments in the famous Scrapbooks now
in the Adyar Archives; her quaint entries in Col. H. S. Olcott’s Diaries of
1378, in the New York days of the Movement; H.P.B.’s earliest fragments
of writing, mostly in French (with translation into English), embodied in an
old Sketchbook also in the Archives; a copious Appendix with Biographical
sketches, prepared by the Compiler, of a large number of individuals associated
with the Founders through the formative years of the Theosophical Society,
and various people from whom H.P.B. quotes or to whom she refers.
The Volume contains also a detailed and fully documented biographical sketch
of H.P.B.’s own life, from her birth to the year 1874 which opens the
Volume. This Volume is the chief source of information wherein authoritative
and reliable data may be found about H.P.B.’s family background, including
Genealogical Tables of her immediate family and its collateral branches.

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